Share This

Image of Comet Tempel 1 taken on 29 June 2005 using the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) through an ultraviolet filter centered on 2600 Angstroms. The image has been compensated for the motion of the comet on the sky, so its background stars appear as streaks on the sky instead of as points.

Credit: Image courtesy of Penn State

Here come the X-rays, on cue. Scientists studying the Deep Impact collision using NASA's Swift satellite report that comet Tempel 1 is getting brighter and brighter in X-ray light with each passing day.

Related Articles

The X-rays provide a direct measurement of how much material was kicked up in the impact. This is because the X-rays are created by the newly liberated material lifted into the comet's thin atmosphere and illuminated by the high-energy solar wind from the Sun. The more material liberated, the more X-rays are produced.

Swift data of the water evaporation on comet Tempel 1 also may provide new insights into how solar wind can strip water from planets such as Mars.

"Prior to its rendezvous with the Deep Impact probe, the comet was a rather dim X-ray source," said Dr. Paul O'Brien of the Swift team at the University of Leicester. "How things change when you ram a comet with a copper probe traveling over 20,000 miles per hour. Most of the X-ray light we detect now is generated by debris created by the collision. We can get a solid measurement of the amount of material released."

"It takes several days after an impact for surface and sub-surface material to reach the comet's upper atmosphere, or coma," said Dr. Dick Willingale, also of the University of Leicester. "We expect the X-ray production to peak this weekend. Then we will be able to assess how much comet material was released from the impact."

Based on preliminary X-ray analysis, O'Brien estimates that several tens of thousands of tons of material were released, enough to bury Penn State's football field under 30 feet of comet dust. Observations and analysis are ongoing at the Swift Mission Operations Center at Penn State University as well as in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Swift is providing the only simultaneous multi-wavelength observation of this rare event, with a suite of instruments capable of detecting visible light, ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Different wavelengths reveal different secrets about the comet.

The Swift team hopes to compare the satellite's ultraviolet data, collected hours after the collision, with the X-ray data. The ultraviolet light was created by material entering into the lower region of the comet's atmosphere; the X-rays come from the upper regions. Swift is a nearly ideal observatory for making these comet studies, as it combines both a rapidly responsive scheduling system with both X-ray and optical/UV instruments in the same satellite.

"For the first time, we can see how material liberated from a comet's surface migrates to the upper reaches of its atmosphere," said Prof. John Nousek, Director of Mission Operations at Penn State. "This will provide fascinating information about a comet's atmosphere and how it interacts with the solar wind. This is all virgin territory."

Nousek said Deep Impact's collision with comet Tempel 1 is like a controlled laboratory experiment of the type of slow evaporation process from solar wind that took place on Mars. The Earth has a magnetic field that shields us from solar wind, a particle wind composed mostly of protons and electrons moving at nearly light speed. Mars lost its magnetic field billions of years ago, and the solar wind stripped the planet of water.

Comets, like Mars and Venus, have no magnetic fields. Comets become visible largely because ice is evaporated from their surface with each close passage around the Sun. Water is dissociated into its component atoms by the bright sunlight and swept away by the fast-moving and energetic solar wind. Scientists hope to learn about this evaporation process on Tempel 1 now occurring quickly -- over the course of a few weeks instead of a billion years -- as the result of a planned, human intervention.

Swift's "day job" is detecting distant, natural explosions called gamma-ray bursts and creating a map of X-ray sources in the universe. Swift's extraordinary speed and agility enable scientists to follow Tempel 1 day by day to see the full effect from the Deep Impact collision.

For the latest news on Swift analysis of comet Tempel 1, refer to:http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Swift-Deep-Impact.htmhttp://swift.gsfc.nasa.govandhttp://swift.sonoma.edu/

The Deep Impact mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Swift is a medium-class NASA explorer mission in partnership with the Italian Space Agency and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in the United Kingdom, and is managed by NASA Goddard. Penn State controls science and flight operations from the Mission Operations Center in University Park, Pennsylvania. The spacecraft was built in collaboration with national laboratories, universities and international partners, including Penn State University; Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico; Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif.; Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Dorking, Surrey, England; the University of Leicester, England; Brera Observatory in Milan; and ASI Science Data Center in Frascati, Italy.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Penn State. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

More From ScienceDaily

More Space & Time News

Featured Research

Mar. 3, 2015 — Meteorologists sometimes struggle to accurately predict the weather here on Earth, but now we can find out how cloudy it is on planets outside our solar system, thanks to new ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Recent research contributes to the effort to determine the nature of dark matter, one of the most important mysteries in physics. As indirect evidence provided by its gravitational effects, dark ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — Dust plays an extremely important role in the universe -- both in the formation of planets and new stars. But the earliest galaxies had no dust, only gas. Now an international team of astronomers has ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its historic orbit insertion at the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — An international team of researchers has demonstrated a way to assess the quality of water on Earth from space by using satellite technology that can visualize pollution levels otherwise invisible to ... full story

Feb. 27, 2015 — A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form that can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth has been modeled. It is theorized to have a cell membrane, composed of small organic ... full story

Feb. 27, 2015 — Astronomers using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have found a cluster of stars forming at the very edge of our Milky Way galaxy. This is the first time astronomers ... full story

Feb. 26, 2015 — If you put a camera in the ice machine and watched water turn into ice, the process would look simple. But the mechanism behind liquids turning to solids is actually quite complex, and understanding ... full story

Feb. 26, 2015 — Like a cowboy at a rodeo, NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), has triumphantly raised its "arm" and unfurled a huge golden "lasso" (antenna) that it will ... full story

NASA EDGE: SMAP Launch

NASA (Mar. 2, 2015) — Join NASA EDGE as they cover the launch of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft live from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Special guests include NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, SMAP Project System Engineer Shawn Goodman and Lt Col Brande Walton and Joseph Sims from the Air Force. No word on the Co-Host&apos;s whereabouts.
Video provided by NASA

Oct. 4, 2011 — The latest analysis of data from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft shows that comet 103P/Hartley 2 is hyperactive in terms of the material it spews out, compared to the other comets observed up ... full story

Oct. 22, 2010 — Astronomers in Japan, using an X-ray detector on the International Space Station, and in the United States, using NASA's Swift space observatory, are announcing the discovery of an object newly ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.